专辑简介

Review by Jason Morehead, OPUS.FM:

On Via Subterranea, their first full-length since 2001’s Atrocious Virgin, Portland’s Trance to the Sun conjures up a heady blend of goth, shoegaze, and psychedelia that brings to mind even such a landmark album as The Cure’s Disintegration.

Like Robert Smith’s magnum opus, there’s a commitment on the part of Trance to the Sun to go big or go home. Ingrid Luna Blue’s voice is coy, ethereal, and sultry, delivering abstract lyrics like “I could disrupt the orbit of your distant molten eye” and even garden gnome-inspired streams-of-consciousness. Meanwhile, Ashkelon Sain’s guitar evokes middle-eastern textures, tears through soaring solos, and delivers haunting ambience — sometimes all in the same song. (To continue with the Disintegration comparison, think “Prayers for Rain” or “Homesick” rather than, say, “Lovesong.”)

“Aviatrix (The Sudden Birds)” is a personal favorite. Sain’s guitar is at its trippiest even as the rhythms (anchored by Daniel Henderson’s drumming) evoke classic Cure-ish gloom. At nine minutes, it’s not for the faint of heart, but if you’ve been looking for the kind of ostentatious (I mean that in a good way) dark rock epic that goths don’t seem to make any more, then you’re in for a treat.